First Female Athlete, a rugby/football player, Diagnosed in Australia With CTE After Repeated Head Impacts

A case of gender equality! You play hard, you die hard irrespective of gender.

"Australian Rules footballer Heather Anderson, 28, who died in November, had multiple lesions across her cortex related to chronic traumatic encephalopathy stemming from repetitive head trauma, the Concussion Legacy Foundation said ..."

"Researchers at the Australian Sports Brain Bank (ASBB), which was co-founded by the Concussion Legacy Foundation, have diagnosed the first female athlete with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head impacts. ... identified low-stage CTE in the brain of former professional Australian rules footballer Heather Anderson, who died in November 2022 at the age of 28. Her death is subject to an ongoing coronial investigation. Due to the circumstances surrounding the death, it is suspected she died by suicide.

“There were multiple CTE lesions as well as abnormalities nearly everywhere I looked in her cortex. It was indistinguishable from the dozens of male cases I’ve seen,” said Buckland, director of the ASBB.  ..."

First Female Athlete Diagnosed With CTE After Repeated Head Impacts - WSJ Australian researchers say Heather Anderson, who died last year, had multiple lesions across her cortex

First female athlete diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) AFLW (Australian football) star, Army medic Heather Anderson died by suspected suicide at 28

Heather Anderson at a 2017 match in Australia.